In today’s column, I address the trending topic of dead butt syndrome and discuss how generative AI dovetails into this quite serious and altogether weighty matter.
The name or moniker given to the phenomenon known as dead butt syndrome carries a bit of whimsy, but the reality is that there is rising concern about people suffering from sitting all day long. Issues such as short-term discomfort and potentially long-term persistent pain can occur, along with other untoward health consequences. Please realize this is important and worrisome.
In a bit of a twist, turns out that generative AI is both hero and villain when it comes to dead butt syndrome. I will walk you through some key background about dead butt syndrome and then look at how generative AI enters the picture.
Here’s the bottom line. If you are on the verge of this phenomenon or know someone else who might be, your awareness of the concerns involved will hopefully aid in avoiding the potential adverse consequences or motivate you toward coping with any difficulties already incurred.
This is part of my ongoing Forbes.com column that showcases how AI and especially generative AI can have impacts on all aspects of our daily lives (see the link here).
The Silent Dangers Of Excessive Sitting
Our culture is filled with smarmy phrases underlying the facet of a person’s backside or posterior, including these rather memorable remarks: Move that keister, shake that booty, landing on your bum, get off your butt, showing off your derriere, toning your cheeks, firming up your buns, revealing a great behind, wiggling your caboose, and strengthening your glutes.
The gist is that we ought to be already fully aware of the need to take care of our gluteus maximus, but the modern-day world seems to be causing widespread neglect. We sit in front of computer screens for hours on end. The advent of smartphones has worsened things. You can go someplace, just about anywhere, and sit for hours upon hours while you stare at cat videos or read that electronic book you’ve been meaning to digest.
A recent article entitled “Sitting For Too Long Can Cause Dead Butt Syndrome – Signs To Watch Out For” in Times Now Digital, dated September 9, 2024, laid out the nature of the overall problem (excerpts):
- “Several studies have emphasized the dangers of prolonged sitting, especially in relation to muscular and skeletal health. A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine shows the detrimental effects of sitting for more than six hours a day, linking it to various health issues including musculoskeletal disorders.”
- “Similarly, research in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that prolonged inactivity can lead to muscle atrophy, particularly in the gluteal muscles, contributing to conditions like Dead Butt Syndrome.”
- “While Dead Butt Syndrome can cause discomfort, it is preventable. Simple lifestyle changes can reduce the risk of developing this condition.”
- “Preventative measures for Dead Butt Syndrome: Take frequent breaks, glute activation exercises, stretch your hip flexors, posture improvement, foam rolling.”
A smarmy person might say that preventative measures are blazingly obvious. Essentially, it all comes down to getting off your duff from time to time. In addition, try to exercise the body region associated with the fanny. And so on.
But if this is so obvious, why don’t people undertake those steps?
Let’s talk about it.
Why People Neglect Their Keister
First, I would dare say that a lot of people don’t know that sitting for long spans of time can be especially detrimental. Most of us have grown up sitting in classrooms during school for hours at a time. We go to movie theatres and sit for several hours. Flying on airplanes consists often of lengthy flights and nearly non-stop sitting. Etc.
That’s to suggest that lengthy sitting is something we do customarily, it can be a form of habit and taken for granted.
Second, it is easy to become preoccupied while being seated and almost forget that you are in fact sitting for a long time. A movie enthralls you and takes you to another world. On an airplane, you pretty much have little choice other than to sit and wait for the flight to arrive at its destination.
Though we can get up in each of these instances and take a stretch, norms tend to inhibit us from doing so.
Third, the erosion of the gluteal muscles usually takes a while to play out. Often referred to as gluteal amnesia, the wearing down is typically gradual and happens over time. It isn’t particularly obvious at first. Only when the degradation manifests do people start to sense that something is amiss. Various symptoms begin to appear, such as lower back pain, hip pain, tightness in the hamstrings, and the like.
In summary, we have a general lack of awareness, a semblance of commonplace societal expectation of sitting for long periods, and a stepwise incremental attrition that doesn’t come right out and clang us on the head that something is going wrong.
I’d say that’s a perfect storm for bringing generative AI into this realm.
Dead Butt Syndrome And Generative AI
I mentioned that generative AI is both a hero and a villain in this tale (or is that “tail”) of woe.
Consider these two possibilities this way:
- (1) Generative AI as a hero. Generative AI can alert you, inform you, and aid you in avoiding or overcoming dead butt syndrome.
- (2) Generative AI as a villain. Generative AI can lull you into sitting for long periods of time and exacerbate dead butt syndrome.
The first use case is that generative AI can be your best pal when it comes to watching out for your tendency to incur dead butt syndrome. With rather simple instructions, you can tell generative AI to let you know when you’ve been sitting for lengthy time periods. The AI can do a pop-up alert to urge you to get up. Furthermore, generative AI can interact with you about the dangers of dead butt syndrome and even guide you toward doing suitable posture and movement exercises.
Smiley face.
The second use case is that people are now so enchanted by generative AI that they are sitting around while dialoguing with the AI and become mentally immersed akin to watching a movie, maybe even more so. It is lamentedly too easy to sit for hours and hours while seemingly carrying on lengthy and fluent conversations with generative AI.
In that sense, generative AI is yet another contributor to sitting, sitting, and more sitting.
I will showcase some of these tradeoffs by logging into ChatGPT, the widely popular generative AI that is used by 200 million people weekly, and ask ChatGPT about the ins and outs of dead butt syndrome.
ChatGPT Discourse On Dead Butt Syndrome
Let’s see what ChatGPT has to say about ways to avoid dead butt syndrome.
This will illustrate the dialoguing capability of generative AI. In addition, this reveals whether generative AI has been data-trained on the topic. Please be aware that each generative AI app differs from the others, and the data training they each have had differs too (see my coverage at the link here). Just because one generative AI has been data trained on a particular topic does not mean that this is universally so.
It is advisable to always do a quick check of whether whichever generative AI you are using has data about the topics or questions you wish to bring up.
Here we go.
- My entered prompt: “Can generative AI help me avoid dead butt syndrome?”
- ChatGPT generated response: “Yes, generative AI can help you avoid dead butt syndrome by providing personalized exercise routines, reminders, and tips for incorporating movement into your daily routine. Here’s how AI can assist. Custom Exercise Plans: AI can generate targeted exercise routines to strengthen your gluteal muscles, focusing on key movements like squats, lunges, and glute bridges. Posture and Movement Reminders: Generative AI can suggest intervals for getting up, stretching, and moving around to counteract prolonged sitting, which is a major cause of dead butt syndrome. Tailored Mobility Drills: AI can recommend mobility exercises to keep your hips and lower back flexible, reducing the strain that often compensates for weak glutes. Real-Time Feedback: AI apps can provide feedback based on your exercise form and posture, ensuring you’re activating your glutes correctly during workouts.”
I would assess that the response given by ChatGPT is right on.
That being said, always do a double-check of any responses produced by generative AI. The AI might be feeding you fake or false information. Nowadays, you might have heard about AI hallucinations, a term that I disfavor because it tends to anthropomorphize AI but has become popularized phraseology and refers to the AI occasionally making things up. I usually refer to those as AI confabulations (see my detailed explanation at the link here).
The crux is that make sure to closely examine all AI-produced responses and compare them to other reputable sources. I did so with the above ChatGPT response.
Getting My Proper Exercise Via AI Guidance
Now that I feel relatively comfortable that ChatGPT has had some semblance of data training on dead butt syndrome, which probably occurred per happenstance when scanning across the Internet during the data training phase, let’s see what else we can do with this.
I went ahead and told ChatGPT to help me avoid getting dead butt syndrome by keeping tabs on how long I’ve been sitting and using the AI. I proceeded to use ChatGPT for a bunch of other dialogues and got immersed in lengthy chats on all sorts of topics.
After a while, the following discourse occurred.
- ChatGPT generated response: “Hey Lance! You’ve been sitting for a while—how about we get those glutes moving? Want a quick 5-minute workout to keep your muscles active?”
- My entered prompt: “I could use a stretch.”
- ChatGPT generated response: “Great! Let’s start with some standing glute squeezes. Stand up, feet shoulder-width apart, and squeeze your glutes for 5 seconds, then release. Repeat this 10 times. Let me know when you’re done!”
- My entered prompt: “All done.”
- ChatGPT generated response: “Awesome! Now let’s activate those glutes further with some bodyweight squats. Lower yourself slowly, keeping your weight on your heels, then push back up by squeezing your glutes. Let’s do 15 of these. Remember, keep your knees aligned with your toes!”
As you can see, ChatGPT alerted me to engage in some exercises. In this case, I did indeed do the exercises and told ChatGPT that I had done so.
I’d like to note that you could potentially lie to generative AI and not do the exercises but claim that you did. That’s on you.
However, if you are using a generative AI that is hooked up to a video camera, the AI could potentially have a viable means of detecting whether you did the exercises or not. The further news is that with the latest advances in generative AI, the video camera capabilities not only can be used to see if you are doing the exercises, but the AI can also analyze the video stream and in real-time tell you whether you are doing them properly or not. Two thumbs up.
Getting In Gear About Dead Butt Syndrome
Generative AI is handy for the hero side of things. Do not go overboard. For example, if you suspect that you might have dead butt syndrome, do not rely on generative AI to diagnose the issue. Go see your physician.
Assuming you sadly are verging on dead butt syndrome, and once you’ve gotten doctor’s orders, you can make use of generative AI to aid in fulfilling the various recommended rehab aspects. You above saw that generative AI can spur you to undertake exercises. The same could be done when doing doctor-prescribed glute-activation and strengthening exercises.
You can even make use of generative AI to schedule your exercise regimen and remind you to make sure to perform the exercises. If you need a pep talk, just instruct generative AI to give you words of encouragement. That’s something that AI can do non-stop.
One thing to keep at the top of mind is that to some extent, generative AI is a potential villain too. You can become mentally engaged in generative AI and lose track of seemingly both time and space. Sitting while using generative AI is tempting and commonplace. The latest generative AI adds voice interaction; thus, you could be walking in a forest, striding on a sidewalk, or otherwise not solely seated when using AI and still carry on conversations.
Whatever you do, avoid dead butt syndrome and keep your buns or caboose in proper shape. If you use generative AI to do so, all the better, and maybe that will ensure a happy ending in the end.
